Today, despite advances in wireless technologies, a majority of music is still played back through conventional wired headphones. However, many wireless device users desire to have wireless devices for music playback. For example, athletes desire to listen to music without having a cord hanging around their necks during workouts. In another example, an office worker may desire to listen to music without reaching behind their computer to plug in wired headphones.
One problem with creating wireless headphones is the amount of information contained in music files. Even an average quality MPEG-1 layer 3 (MP3) audio file can contain one or more megabytes per minute of audio content. In comparison, an average web page loaded to a mobile device is approximately one tenth of a megabyte. If a user listens to music for a long duration of time, several hundred megabytes of data may be transferred per hour. In comparison, when transferring simple data, mobile phones rarely transfer that much data in an entire day.
This amount of information is difficult to process in a wireless earpiece because sending data consumes in excess of approximately 200 nanoJoules per bit. Thus, the transfer of hundreds of megabytes while listening to music files results in high power consumption within the wireless earpiece.
This high power consumption requires placement of a large battery within the wireless earpiece to allow the wireless earpiece to operate for the duration of an athlete's workout or an office worker's day. However, placement of a large battery in a wireless earpiece is difficult. A comfortable wireless earpiece should conform to the user's head and ear. At most, approximately 100 cubic millimeters of space are available for placement of a battery at the user's ear. For lithium-ion batteries, this size battery can provide only 10 milliWatts of power for two hours. This power consumption limitation makes wireless playback of music files difficult.